The treatment of bone fractures, resulting from either malignant or benign processes is an important medical procedure. When these fractures are pathological it is necessary to find a means for repairing the fracture and preventing subsequent fractures. If there is sufficient bone stock, methods have been used in the past which include various types of reinforcing nails. More recently there have been instances of supplementing the reinforcement with a hardenable plastic material such as poly (methyl methacrylate). These procedures have involved the use of intramedullary reinforcing nails which are small in diameter and which are then embedded in a hardenable plastic by using hand packing techniques. It has been difficult to fill the necessary voids completely by this method so as to produce a solid supporting structure.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved process for producing a reinforcement for a fractured bone employing a rigid metallic reinforcement supplemented by a hardenable plastic material capable of filling all the interstices and voids in the bone to provide a solid structure.